Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Highs and Lows

Mr. Fantasy was scheduled to work on Sunday morning at Belmont. However, Mike noticed significant swelling and pressure in both of his front ankles, and he was not comfortable breezing.Very bad timing to say the least as we are forced to skip the Vosburgh this weekend. We understand that this is an extremely frustrating situation, but we want to do the right thing by this horse.

We plan to send Mr. Fantasy to Dr. Baker in Kentucky over the next few days so he can do a full evaluation of our colt. Dr. Baker treated him last year and will be able to give us the clearest view as to where we stand. It is not known if surgery is necessary at this point in time, and we will be back in touch after conferring with our chief veterinary consultant.Phosphorescent worked five furlongs in 1:01.89 on Saturday morning at Parx Racing at Philadelphia. The work was 15th of 26 at the distance. Lupe actually caught him in a minute and change. Lupe said, “That was a good work for this horse. He is not the fastest work horse in the world, especially on dirt.”

Phosphorescent took an awkward step in the gallop out of the breeze and pulled up slightly off in his right front leg. Lupe called Dr. Hanf out to the barn to have Phosphorescent evaluated. X-rays of his right front revealed no structural damage. There was also no heat or swelling in the leg. Dr. Hanf concluded that our colt just stung himself a little bit, and suggested giving the leg one round of shockwave treatment on Sunday morning. Dr. Hanf also scoped our turf lover, and he scoped CLEAN. Good news

On Sunday morning Lupe reports that Phosphorescent jogged completely sound. Dr. Hanf still shockwaved him because he felt it couldn’t hurt and could alleviate any very minor stiffness in the leg. Phosphorescent was sound this morning as well. However, he did not train because the track was a sloppy mess due to the rain. More rain is expected overnight, so he will likely skip training tomorrow.

We fully intend on running the $100,000 Maryland Million Turf Sprint on Saturday, October 2nd at Laurel. Entries are taken on Wednesday. Both Lupe and Dr. Hanf are confident that our colt is 100% and that we dodged a bullet here. It has been quite a roller coaster ride with this horse over the past few weeks, but hopefully it will all be worth it on Saturday.